Canatara (for Colleen)

Even with lethal Tree &indomitable leaf, the woods breathe in frost and breathe out warm sandy shores, a water's cresting scent

A forest is part eye of the slender girl who flits the beaches, part teary heart of a lake enthroned in mud, slow- settling— a forest for

gleaming fruit and the elk that run

Given a halo of mayflies and berry, a forest can shine

so far out into brush even the blue jay can live inside it, just as easily as the crow & hawk cliff

Acorns lie inside, too & the hatching nest Roots and the mole with arcing back, receptive and low, make a park of a forest, anywhere, just as the shiny roe on all four elfin feet,

lives above all and after all in the rain, lips berry-stained, and skims Huron's warm steamy sands like a lost girl sadly banished from the trails